A Good Linux Distro For Music Production?

[uOpt]

Yeah, I had a USB SSD with Linux Mint on it a couple years ago, it worked great with all my music apps working, including VSTs. I needed the drive for something else and I have never got around to remaking it. I am pretty sure you can now do the same with Windows OS on an external USB SSD. Not sure about Apple silicon though.

Apple doesn't allow any change of installation medium anymore. Exchanging the internal SSD using soldering will not work. Booting a full install from a USB drive will not work. That is the case since M1.

Try harder next time.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

They even provide instructions themselves for doing so.

Yes, you can put an Installer on USB and of course you can boot that. But you cannot have a working installed OS on an external disk anymore after Intel Macs.

[skijumptoes]

Yes, you can put an Installer on USB and of course you can boot that. But you cannot have a working installed OS on an external disk anymore after Intel Macs.

I run MacOS from an external USB-C drive on an M1 machine and have been for months, what makes you think you can't do it? Has there been a recent change or announcement or something?

[FrettedSynth]

I think the point Guenon was trying to make is? The full installed system with applications, plugins and samples can be run on about any x64 computer. And if need be, be fully installed to that machine.

That will not happen with either Windows or MacOS. Both even if running on an external drive will only run on that computer. The OS is linked to only one machine.

[dan_flash]

This thread has become unintentionally hilarious and full of outstanding displays of ignorance.

Someone commented earlier about how hard it is to install Reaper or 'VSTs' on Linux compared to Windows. So let's genuinely compare;

Reaper on Windows. Download installer -> read the readme -> double click on it (or right click -> install or whatever).

Reaper on Linux. Download installer -> read the readme -> double click on it (or right click -> run in terminal).

VSTs on Windows. Download the .dll -> move it to your VST plug folder.

VSTs on Linux. Download the .so -> move to your VST folder.

Linux neither difficult to use nor learn. If the teenagers moaning about Linux in this thread were able to successfully learn how to make sick EDM beats on a cracked copy of Ableton in their bedroom (see what I did there?), then I'm sure they can successfully learn to use, and thrive with, any number of Linux distros.

Snottiness aside - most Linux users I've met are completely ambivalent about your personal choice of OS. At the end of the day, you use whichever OS gives you mileage and for most people that's Windows or MAC and that's brilliant. For me, and some others, it's Linux.

Now to answer the original question - I'd recommend AV Linux if you're brand new or Mint + Ubuntu Studio Installer (or KX Studio repositories) if you already use Linux. These days however, pretty much any distro is viable for audio / music work.

[dellboy]

This thread has become unintentionally hilarious and full of outstanding displays of ignorance.

Someone commented earlier about how hard it is to install Reaper or 'VSTs' on Linux compared to Windows. So let's genuinely compare;

Reaper on Windows. Download installer -> read the readme -> double click on it (or right click -> install or whatever).

Reaper on Linux. Download installer -> read the readme -> double click on it (or right click -> run in terminal).

VSTs on Windows. Download the .dll -> move it to your VST plug folder.

VSTs on Linux. Download the .so -> move to your VST folder.

Linux neither difficult to use nor learn. If the teenagers moaning about Linux in this thread were able to successfully learn how to make sick EDM beats on a cracked copy of Ableton in their bedroom (see what I did there?), then I'm sure they can successfully learn to use, and thrive with, any number of Linux distros.

Snottiness aside - most Linux users I've met are completely ambivalent about your personal choice of OS. At the end of the day, you use whichever OS gives you mileage and for most people that's Windows or MAC and that's brilliant. For me, and some others, it's Linux.

Now to answer the original question - I'd recommend AV Linux if you're brand new or Mint + Ubuntu Studio Installer (or KX Studio repositories) if you already use Linux. These days however, pretty much any distro is viable for audio / music work.

You are obviously referencing Linux native VSTs. Windows native VSTs on Linux are another thing. Moving a Windows native VST into a folder named VST on Linux will do nothing. If only it were that easy then I am sure many more would migrate to Linux. You will need Yabridge or LinVst or Carla etc up and running for Windows native VSTs to function.You will also need to get around the activation of windows VSTs using Wine, which often does not work. Generally its true that Reaper is not difficult to install on a working Linux OS that is installed to a hard-drive. The difficulty I encountered was trying to install it to a LIVE ISO running MX Linux.

[carrieres]

Now to answer the original question - I'd recommend AV Linux if you're brand new or Mint + Ubuntu Studio Installer (or KX Studio repositories) if you already use Linux. These days however, pretty much any distro is viable for audio / music work.

Maybe the difficulty for new linux user is to choose which distro and which desktop

[dellboy]

Yes, you can put an Installer on USB and of course you can boot that. But you cannot have a working installed OS on an external disk anymore after Intel Macs.

I run MacOS from an external USB-C drive on an M1 machine and have been for months, what makes you think you can't do it? Has there been a recent change or announcement or something?

It would be interesting to know what would happen if you plug your Mac OS enabled external USB-C drive into someone else's Mac Silicon machine? Would it work?

[skijumptoes]

It would be interesting to know what would happen if you plug your Mac OS enabled external USB-C drive into someone else's Mac Silicon machine? Would it work?

I really don't know, I use it as a work drive that's completely vanilla for testing. I haven't got another silicon mac to try.

Can't see any reason it wouldn't work providing you have the credentials to unlock the drive of course. There's no kind of locking or linking that drive to that machine that I remember. I just followed a simple guide like this:

[Guenon]

Generally its true that Reaper is not difficult to install on a working Linux OS that is installed to a hard-drive. The difficulty I encountered was trying to install it to a LIVE ISO running MX Linux.

There is no difference. An MX live session, from Reaper's perspective, is just like a system booted from a hard drive.

Installing a new version of Reaper in a booted up live ISO of my personal system, then checking that it's installed, opening a Diva instance:



Installing Reaper in a booted up live ISO of default MX Linux:



Pardon the resolution and the fact that it takes a couple of seconds longer than usual, I just quickly did these captures by booting a virtual machine windowed from said ISOs.

[Guenon]

Can't see any reason it wouldn't work providing you have the credentials to unlock the drive of course. There's no kind of locking or linking that drive to that machine that I remember.

very cool. And those T series drives are also very impressive, I've been using them for a couple of years now, and running a system direcly from them rivals the feel of a local SSD installation, when using an appropriately high speed USB connection.

(For me, the main impressive point in running a system from a bootable USB device - the way I described previously - is in the ability to run it on such a wide variety of systems, laptops and desktops alike, and being able to work seamlessly and directly from that boot and install the system on said computer, with everything preconfigured in your custom working configuration. Also, a nice bonus is, if the computer you are booting up has enough RAM, you can also choose to load the entire system itself into RAM, and while the system is running, with all of your environment configured and usable, you can pull the drive, and the system and all of its installed applications & utilities keep working.)

[dellboy]

Generally its true that Reaper is not difficult to install on a working Linux OS that is installed to a hard-drive. The difficulty I encountered was trying to install it to a LIVE ISO running MX Linux.

There is no difference. An MX live session, from Reaper's perspective, is just like a system booted from a hard drive.

Installing a new version of Reaper in a booted up live ISO of my personal system, then checking that it's installed, opening a Diva instance:



Installing Reaper in a booted up live ISO of default MX Linux:



Pardon the resolution and the fact that it takes a couple of seconds longer than usual, I just quickly did these captures by booting a virtual machine windowed from said ISOs.

So yours is just the plain MX ISO as downloaded from the server and running for the very first time from a USB stick with no prior intervention?

[Guenon]

So yours is just the plain MX ISO as downloaded from the server and running for the very first time from a USB stick with no prior intervention?

The second one is, I just downloaded the ISO from the MX site. The first one is my own live ISO. Like I said, I merely quickly did these in a virtual machine. It looks exactly the same if you boot from USB, in both cases. (If you don't count that they run even better when actually running "for real" on the computer and not in a virtual session )

[dellboy]

So yours is just the plain MX ISO as downloaded from the server and running for the very first time from a USB stick with no prior intervention?

The second one is, I just downloaded the ISO from the MX site. The first one is my own live ISO. Like I said, I merely quickly did these in a virtual machine. It looks exactly the same if you boot from USB, in both cases. (If you don't count that they run even better when actually running "for real" on the computer and not in a virtual session )

Ok, I am writing this from the MX LIVE ISO and booted it from my windows desktop.

I have downloaded Reaper and extracted it and have clicked on "Reaper" - nothing. I have right clicked on "install Reaper.sh" and used the run command - nothing. I have tried to use the terminal and CD into the folder and run "install Reaper.sh" - nothing. I am using the Debian version of Reaper. I also tried the Arch version. What am I doing wrong?

[sprnva]

Ok, I am writing this from the MX LIVE ISO and booted it from my windows desktop.

I have downloaded Reaper and extracted it and have clicked on "Reaper" - nothing. I have right clicked on "install Reaper.sh" and used the run command - nothing. I have tried to use the terminal and CD into the folder and run "install Reaper.sh" - nothing. I am using the Debian version of Reaper. I also tried the Arch version. What am I doing wrong?

In the terminal, CD into the folder with the extracted reaper files. Then type ./install-reaper.sh and hit enter.

[Guenon]

What am I doing wrong?

You are doing things without reading this:



So:



Which gives you: